It's been a (relatively) long road.
Badass Brigade is the first game I've ever made. The only relevant experience I had going in was modding for Starcraft 2. IYKYK. That doesn't teach you how to code but it does reveal many fundamentals like how variables work, how graphics, code, and audio all hook up to each other, etc. So going in I didn't know how to code, draw, animate, or make sounds.
I was driven by Starcraft 2's editor sucking. Not to say it actually sucks, but my project files were getting so large that the editor would take 2 solid minutes to save and would crash all the time. It drove me insane. Every crash made me ask myself why I'm pouring all this time and energy into this and not something "real," i.e. not a mod. I was almost finished making a Pikmin analogue when I finally gave up.
I officially opened a tutorial for Gamemaker on August 28, 2024. The actual Badass Brigade project file was made a few days later.
Here's me after doing a basic "how to move in a platformer" tutorial.
Here's after a few days of figuring out parallax backgrounds and how to do pixel art. I already had a mental image of how the game should look going in so this stuff didn't get used, but it was necessary practice.
Long story short, repeat that process for everything that goes into a game.
Need something -> google it -> read tutorial -> try -> it sucks -> google it again -> try again -> it works ok -> sit on it a while -> make some improvements -> hey this is actually good!
Not all is fine and dandy of course. I haven't even gotten to the many bad decisions I've made. If you hang around game development circles, you'll hear the same thing from everyone when it comes to starting out: Your first game will fail and don't make a platformer.
cough
So anyway, release date is November 13, 2026! Mark your calendar for this once in a lifetime event!